Funny: SNL on the liberal “bubble” after Trump

AllahpunditPosted at 9:01 pm on November 21, 2016

To cleanse the palate, this is the flip side of the already famous “Black Jeopardy” sketch that aired last month. That one was a sympathetic look at what blue-collar Trump supporters have in common culturally with the black working class. This one is a goof on what upscale white urban liberals — the sort of people who write for “Saturday Night Live” — don’t have in common with the rest of America. And it’s not the first time they’ve hit that theme lately. Watch the second vid below, from SNL’s first show after the election, for a related satire of how sheltered liberal professionals view their own political privilege. To well-heeled white Democrats, Trump being elected is unimaginable, the worst thing that could conceivably happen to America. To black Democrats, it’s a fart in the wind.

Neither skit is savage, just as a caricature drawn by a cartoonist who’s watching himself in a mirror usually produces light mockery, not harsh criticism. But at least they’re branching out from the usual political targets you’d expect from a show like this, especially after an election that went badly for the left. One undeniable chastening effect of Trump’s win on younger liberals will be to get them to start thinking harder about class divisions after downscale whites in the Rust Belt turned out en masse to hand the presidency to the GOP. You would think the left, of all people, wouldn’t need reminding about how class informs culture and culture informs political preferences, but the Clintons getting crushed among blue-collar whites is what it is. SNL would be smart to keep playing with this theme.